keys

So every Tuesday morning I do laundry.  Well this morning I go to put everything into the dryer and after the door slams shut I realized that I forgot to flip the door stopper thing so the door wouldn't shut and lock.  I was then locked out of my apartment with nothing but my laundry card and dryer sheets (and the laundry in the washer).  I then remembered that we gave one of our spare keys to our neighbors in case we locked ourselves out.  No answer when I knocked on the door.  I went and put the laundry into the dryer and tried the door again.  Still no answer.  Sometimes my roommate comes back during lunch and sometimes she doesn't so then I wished I had her number and a phone.  I ended up knocking on doors until someone answered and borrowed a phone to call my mom who gave me a number for the Apartment Store who said they didn't have the spare (I could have told them that) and they could call maintenance to either re-key the lock or unlock it for $23.  At that point I didn't have a choice and had to have maintenance come and unlock the door.

I always hate it when you call someone because you are locked out and they ask "do you have your id and keys?"  NO, if I had my id and keys do you think I'd be in this situation!!! 

Football

I can't believe that 2 weeks of classes are already over.  I think this semester will be ok.  My professors aren't too bad and I have friends in all of my classes.

I was in vibrations class and my professor is always sort of crazy and random.  He usually starts class with random songs from youtube and he makes jokes throughout the class.  Well this past week, the class before us had used colored chalk to write on the board.  He refuses to write on the board if it isn't completely erased and this colored chalk wasn't erasing at all.  The only thing he has is the bottle of diet pepsi he was drinking.  So he pours that on a section of the board and erases it.  We then began a discussion about exams versus projects and wasted about a third of class.  He then finds a bottle of hand sanitizer and puts that on the board to erase the rest of it.  My friends and I were laughing so hard we were crying.

This weekend was the first Football game of the season.  Friday night was Football Eve which is an event (mostly for freshman) where they go over songs, the football team and JoePa come, and a time to spend with friends.  My friends and I went.  At the end, they announce that there are still Sugarland tickets available for the concert that night.  A few of us decide that we really want to go and after Football Eve we head over to the BJC and buy tickets.  We got there for Little Big Town's last few songs and got to see all of Sugarland.  We then went to the Diner downtown and got grilled stickies a la mode.  It was definitely a good night.

Today was the game against Youngstown State.  I went to a taligate with the company I co-op for and then met up with some of my friends for the game.  It was an absolute blast and I can't want for the rest of the season!!!

Yoga

I love going to the fitness classes at the gym but refuse to go alone.  I always need someone there to keep me motivated.  After our SWE meeting tonight, a few friends and I went to Yoga together.  Yoga started at 9 but we got there around 8 just to make sure we could get in and our meeting was done around then.  Because it's still early on in the semester, you have to get to classes early in order to guarantee yourself a spot.  We were the first ones in line.  We swiped in, put our stuff in a cubby,  and laid out our mats.  Yoga was wonderful and very relaxing.  I absolutely loved it and am looking forward to going again.  I feel like it will be an awesome way to wind down from a long day and slowly build up strength, muscle endurance, and flexibility - three things I will definitely need in the future.  We decided to try and go to Yoga every Monday night at 9 and make it a girls night event sort of thing.

Nugget

So my friend Katie texts me this afternoon and asks me if I want to go for a walk with her.  I say yes and we decide to walk around the golf course.  We talked a lot about this past week of school and how we missed each other over the summer.  As we were walking, Katie spotted some photo ops and I of course had my camera.  We took pictures of flowers, and jumping, and other random things we found/thought would be cool.  We also found an empty crate sitting by the path so we picked it up and called it our friendship crate.

Towards the end of our walk, Katie spotted something moving on the ground a little off the path and she thought might be a baby bird.  She and I walk over to it and discover it is a baby squirrel.  We looked around and couldn't find the nest or the mom so we were trying to figure out how to rescue it.  All we had was this crate, my drawstring bag with all of our stuff in it, and our clothes.  We obviously didn't want to use our hands and Katie decided the best option was my bag so we empty my bag into the crate that we had luckily found earlier and scooped Nugget (what we named the baby squirrel) into the bag.  Katie called one of her friends and asked her what we should do.  She ended up taking it over to the animal hospital where it would hopefully be in good hands and survive. 

WEPO 2010

WEPO came and went so fast.  I can't believe that it was as fast as it was.  I had a blast and I know my mentees did too.  I hope I was a good mentor and that they know I'm here for them.  Here's a summary of the events.

It was weird being there and not seeing all of my friends who graduated last year.  I got to see some of them at the end of WEPO though.

The table theme this year was TV channels and my team was Discovery Channel.  We set up or table with a shark poster, hard hat, and some other odds and ends to represent Discovery Channel.

A big exciting thing was all of  my girls were really good at responding to me this summer.  I was expecting to have one or two who didn't answer anything, but they were all really good about it.

One of our ice breakers was the human pretzel (knot).  We tried to do it with all 14 of us and quickly realize that would not work so we split into two groups of 7.  My group somehow linked hands so that there was no possible way to untangle.  Three of us were around one of the others and her arms were on either side of our chain so it would have been a never ending circle.  I guess a good way to describe it is as linked rings.  At one point I had told them that I am a little crazy and weird and a few responded "We know!"  I introduced myself to the whole group and forgot I was junior ("I'm a junior...I think.") and everyone laughed at me.

One of the other mentors was in my group freshman year and we had signed the bridge at the park together with someone else.  When we were both rovers last year, we both signed the bridge and had someone else sign it with us.  This year we had one of the other girls who was in our original group sign it with us.  Its sort of a silly little tradition, but kind of cool to go the next year and see where we had signed it.

At broomball the first night, the entire team decided to have a dance party at the top of the bleachers.  It was totally awesome and I had so much fun with it.  I'm so glad I ended up with an energetic group.  There were two other mentors from my original group and all three of our teams were together on one broomball team.  It was just like freshman year all over again.

There's a lot more, but I don't really feel like typing it all because it's not exciting.

I moved into my apartment Friday night and then realized I couldn't find my camera with all of my WEPO pictures on it.  I tore apart my car and all of my stuff in my apartment and couldn't find it.  I called my mom and was on the phone with her for about an hour or so crying the entire time.  I finally found it wrapped around hangers in my closet.  I was so happy when I found it!!!!!

Summer List

I guess since my summer is basically over I can post this now. My friend Katie has a blog where she tries to do something from the book 2001 Things to do Before You Die everyday.  Since it's hard to update daily during the summer, she created a list of this to do this summer.  I took her list (with permission of course) and added to it so it would fit my summer a little better.  Here is my list and what I accomplished is bolded. Color driveway with chalk - didn't get to color with chalk but I did make chalk with my cousins.

Swimming - many times

Fishing - didn't fish myself but watched someone catch two huge fish

Make your own/extreme bocce - watched bocce but didn't play

Sleep out in a tent - unfortunately no

Play with your dog - finally got to do that today.  I threw the frisbee and played tug-o-war

Grill something - kind of.  I'm not a good griller so my job is putting stuff on and taking it off when I'm told.

Climb a tree

Jump rope while listening to Jump Rope by Blue October

Visit a friend - I visited a bunch of friends, both old and new

Go to a carnival - St. Stan's carnival near home  and Blue Water Fest had a carnival that I went to with my cousin when she came to visit

Ride a unicorn (or bike) - rode (and bought and transported) a bike!!!

Finish a book - I finished two books and have three more currently in progress

Go grocery shopping - way too many times especially for it being 20 minutes each way!

Drive 20mph over the speed limit - uhm, yes.  however there is no proof except for this sentence.

See fireworks - yes, but I wans't warned that I needed my PPE (namely safety glasses) so I couldn't see much of them

Go for a night walk - night walk along the beach/pier!

Catch fireflies (lose 10 points if fireflies get squished/harmed) - I didn't lose 10 points!

Buy a turtle -hm.....nope but I did buy a book with some pages on turtles and watched finding nemo

Visit your family - depends on how you want to look at this.  I went home and "visited" family for 4th of July.  I visited with "Penn State Family" on my way to MI and while in MI.  And I had family come visit me.

Make a new friend - many new friends were made!

Make a smoothie - yummy!!!

Have a sleepover - yep, a few of them

Use/run through a sprinkler - my nephew's inflatable pool has a sprinkler on it.  My sister also thought it would be funny to dump a cup of water on us from the patio above.

Make s'mores - on the grill and in the microwave but not over a fire

Have a water balloon fight

Go to the movies - saw Toy Story 3 while it was the movie of the week in HB.

Go bowling - no, there was a bowling alley in HB but it never seemed to be open

go off a rope swing

Spend a day laying in the sun

Take a nap in a hammock

Take your dog swimming

Explore a new town - story of my summer

go for a road trip (big or small) - yepp :)

Pick some flowers for your mom

Get ice cream with a friend - with a friend and a cousin

Swing on a tire swing

Go on a canoe ride (or paddle boat ride) - does jet ski count?

Twirl sparklers on the 4th of july - no sparklers, but set off fireworks in the field

Buy lemonade from a kid at a lemonade stand - surprisingly no lemonade stands in hb

Make up a new kind of sandwich - chicken, cheese, salami, hotsauce or bbq sauce, and ranch

Blow up balloons, put notes inside and hand them out to friends

Invent a new dance

Make an obstacle course

go to an outside band concert - downtown hoedown.

Make a movie - WEPO!!!

Buy something form a yard sale

Fly a kite

Go without TV/Computer for a day or two - yep, though not really by choice

Feed horses

Wash a car

Swing on a swing set - on a beach

Watch a scary movie with a friend - don't do scary  movies, but we thought we were in a horror movie a few times between the crazy fog and the tornado warnings

Play baseball

Jump in a pool (or lake) with your clothes on

Make your own popsicles - considering I couldn't even get my ice cream to freeze, I don't think this would have worked well.

Bake something

Learn to write left handed - doing better than I was at the beginning of the summer but still not too legible.

Ride a rollercoaster

Go to a farmer's market

Do a puzzle

Watch the sunrise over the lake - not really in the mood to wake up that early to go to the beach before work but I did watch some sunsets

beat super mario on the wii

send a postcard - sent a lot of postcards

take a bubble bath

11.5 Hours on the Road

While I may have done my fair share of complaining over the past few weeks, I did learn a lot and overall had a good experience.  It definitely made me appreciate being home and close to family, however I think I may miss the cool days and nights.

So we had my "going away lunch" on Thursday because my supervisor wasn't going to be in the office on Friday.  He also wanted me to turn in my computer before he left and I convinced him that I still had work I could do and needed it.  In reality I had already turned over all of my projects and had nothing left to do I explored the intranet for the time I was at work on Friday.  Friday half day was fairly uneventful.

After work Friday I finished packing up my car and left to start the drive home.  I stop to get gas, check my oil, and check the air in my tires - all of the necessities I learned from living with an auto body mechanic.  Well, I'm checking my tire pressure and the back ones are reading 32psi (normal) and the front ones look a little low but were reading 40psi.  I called my step-dad and told him what was going on and he said to just trust the gauge and I should be fine.  Fortunately, no problems on the way home.

I get to Detroit Airport and pick up my mom and we're trying to get onto a different highway than I came in on and have no clue where we're going.  We end up driving around for about 15 minutes and finally end up where we need to be.

At around 5pm we decided that we should figure out where we want to spend the night.  When my family drives long distances, we don't usually book hotels in advance and just play it by ear as to where we stop for the night.  We were looking to stop driving around 8pm which would put us near Cleveland.  We call a few hotels and no one has anything available.  The suggest a town about half an hour past them.  We call and nothing and that guy couldn't even suggest another hotel.   We then call Youngstown, OH (about an hour past Cleveland) and there's one room but it is one king bed and smoking.  Needless to say, we didn't take that.  We finally ended up in Clarion, PA in one of the last 3 rooms at the exit and got there around 10pm.  We ended up driving for 2 extra hours, but only had a 5 hour drive on Saturday then.

Saturday we stopped in State College for Creamery ice cream!  No trip through PA is complete without it.  In a little over a week I will be back there and will get to see friends again!!!!!

We get back home and the second we park and are getting out of the car my step-dad pulls up and says to my mom "I've never been so happy to see you!!!"  Apparently someone was in our store who had some really large transfer to do which requires a lot of paperwork and he was doing something else and had to go get cables.  We go over there instead of unpacking the car and spend the next hour doing this.  That night we babysat my 1 month old niece Riley.  This was the first time I met her and she is so adorable!!!

One Week Left!

I can't believe that my co-op is almost over.  This time next week I will be babysitting my one month old niece!!!  While I may have complained about the whole small town thing, I may miss it just a little bit.  However, I am definitely ready to go home and see my family and friends!  All of my projects are winding down/at a good point to pass off - a point I didn't think would come just 2 weeks ago.  On Monday my roommate and I are going to be in Midland touring the plant there.  I'm excited for that.  We also beat Super Mario on the Wii today.  We finished most of it one of the first weekends and have been saying all summer that we need to finish it before I leave.  Well a rainy Saturday in a small town is perfect for playing on the Wii.  WEPO is almost here too!!  Only 18 more days!  I'm excited to see everyone including a bunch of people who graduated and are coming back!

Countdown!!!

Can the countdown officially begin?  I have two big countdowns right now. They are both withing the next month and are what have been getting me through all summer.

The first countdown is until the end of my first co-op rotation.  I only have 2 weeks left!  I have already been here for 10 weeks which is as long as my internship last summer was.  Although I have enjoyed my time here (for the most part), I am very excited to go home for a few days and see my family.  A little over a day after I arrived back in Michigan after the 4th of July, my step-brother's girlfriend had a baby - Riley Sophia.  I have not met her yet and am really excited to see her and hold her for the first time.  I also really want to see my nephew Braydon again.  I asked my sister for a new picture of him last night and she sent me one that I got from her a month ago.  It helped, but I will still homesick.

My second countdown is until WEPO 2010.  I am so excited that words cannot describe.  Only 25 days!!!  Part of the reason I'm so excited is because I get to see all of my friends who I have not seen all summer.  You don't realize how much time you spend with someone until you don't see them for a few months and rarely talk to them.

Harbor Beach Maritime Festival

This past weekend was the Maritime Festival here in Harbor Beach, MI.  I was told at the beginning of the summer that I need to stay in town this weekend because it is the only one where anything is really going on.  So I made plans to stay and join in on the festivities.

The Festival started Wednesday night with a kick-off party at Smalley's (the local bar/restaurant).  I didn't go to that though.  Thursday was bocce on the beach.  My family had been telling me that I should join a bocce ball team all summer.  I had no clue what bocce ball was so I went and watched for a little bit.  While there, I ran into a few people from work who were pitching their tent (canopy/tailgating tent) for the weekend.  I spent time talking to them and learned a lot about their lives that I didn't know before.  I also officially met some more people from work.

Friday is a big day as far as local involvement.  There are amateur jet ski races.  Teams of 4 sign up for the races.  Each racer has to do one timed lap around the track.  After all four racers go, the times are added to get a team time.  DAS HB sponsors two teams - one of people who know what they're doing/the good ones and the other is the "reject team" or the ones who aren't that good on jet skis.  They were bugging the two of us co-ops to join for a while and I finally caved even though I'd never been on a jet ski before.  They assured me it was ok and I would be fine.  So Friday afternoon I show up at the beach, meet up with my team, and go out into the lake to ride a jet ski (this was also my first time venturing into the lake and it was actually pretty warm).  I had gotten some coaching about what to do and what not to do but I was still pretty nervous.  There was a straight stretch before they started timing you and if you fell off in that section, it didn't matter.  Everyone told me to mess with the jet ski in that section just to get comfortable with it before I went out on the course.  My turn comes and as I'm going down that straight stretch for the first time, I'm hanging on for dear life trying to steer straight.   I wasn't trying to play with it but everyone on my team though I was.  I didn't fall off during the race, but it did take me twice as long as everyone else to finish.  Not bad though for my first time.

Another Friday event was the DAS Relay for Life Steak Fry.  Every year, the DAS employees have a steak fry at the beach to raise money for Relay for Life.  I got involved with that and had a good time.  It started with preparation at 9:30 am which meant I go to sleep in on a work day.  We then had a break from about 12:30 until 3:30 which was when I ate lunch and rode the jet ski.  I was a runner during the steak fry.  This meant that I took the orders of how people wanted their steak cooked, went to the grill to get the steak, and then found the people at their tables and delivered the steaks. 

Saturday was professional jet ski races.  Apparently these races are the 2nd largest in the country or something like that.  It was really cool to watch.  Some of the skis (what the ones you stand on are called) did log jumps meaning they jumped over tires strung together in the water.  Saturday night, my roommate and I went to see the movie of the week at the theater because it was Toy Story 3.  Such a good movie.  After the movie we went back to the beach for fireworks.  HB doesn't do fireworks on the 4th of July because they do them during Maritime the weekend after.  While the fireworks were not as rapid fire as most I've seen, they did last for about 45 minutes.  We went and spent our time that night at the beach with some of our co-workers and their families.

Sunday was the last jet ski races of the weekend and "win it in a minute".  I didn't spend much time at either because I wanted to get back for the last bit of the world cup game.

It was definitely worth staying in HB this weekend.  Maritime Festival was wonderful and I wouldn't mind coming back for that in the future.

4th of July Weekend 2010!!!

A few weeks ago, my mom asked me about when I get off work for the 4th of July.  I told her I have a half day on Friday (just like any other Friday) and off on Monday since the holiday fell on a Sunday.  She asked if I could take off Friday morning and come home for a long weekend.  That is exactly what I did.  I worked 4 10s (worked Monday through Thursday for 10 hours) and didn't have to work on Friday so I still had 40 hours for the week.  My mom booked a plane ticket from Detroit, MI to Philadelphia, PA leaving a little before 12 on Friday and landing in Philly around 1:30. 

Earlier last week, I had been texting with my friend Paige and it came up that I was flying home for the 4th.  Well it turns out that she was flying out to Detroit from Philly to spend the 4th with her boyfriend and his family.  My flight landed 30-40 minutes before hers left so when I got to Philly, we landed and spent a few minutes talking.  It was definitely nice to get to see her and talk to her again.

My mom had asked my sister to work so she could come and pick me up from the airport.  This meant that my 14 month old nephew got to come to the airport too.  It is a tradition that everytime we go to the airport, we stop at a 50s style diner called Nifty Fifties to get milkshakes and spicy cheese fries on our way home.  I'm in the back seat of the car with my nephew and am handing him french fries to eat because he was hungry.  I try to hand him one and he shakes his head no (something I had never seen him do before).  I then said to him jokingly "What do you mean no"  and he opened his mouth to reveal a mouthful of french fries (again, something new).  I then figured he needed some water to wash down the fries and learned that my mom had left his cup back at the store but he could drink from a straw to let him have some of my milkshake.  I did and he didn't want to give it back then.  Now you've got to understand, this kid rarely has anything but water so to get something sweet and creamy like a milkshake is wonderful.  I then got to spend part of the afternoon babysitting which I loved doing.  My nephew is definitely one of the things I miss most.

Saturday was my step-mom's dad's birthday so everyone was invited over to go swimming and barbecue.   My first time swimming all summer.  Although I live right on the lake, I haven't been in it yet partially because it's cold (we're lucky if the air temp reaches 70 and we always have a breeze) and because the bottom when you get to waist level is covered in plants and I have issues when I'm in the water and something touches my feet.  Maybe this weekend when I'm jet skiing I'll actually end up in the water.

Sunday I was invited to another pool party and a friend of my dad and step-moms.  I was surprised my mom let me take the car and go to that.  It was a lot of fun and I even got a little tan and didn't burn!  Sunday was definitely a day where you needed to be in a pool  because the high was in the high 90s and it wasn't humid at all.  I'd never been so excited for weather that warm until I came out here for the summer.  Sunday night we went to a cookout at a club we belong to and we set off fireworks in the field.  Now, we have gone to picnics here since I was about 5.  Every year, we start the bonfire and one of my friends and I want smores.  Had anyone ever though about bring graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate?  No!  We always have to beg someone to drive us out to the grocery store 10 minutes away to get smores at 9pm.  No one usually wants to so some years we go without smores.  This year I remembered ahead of time and we bought everything on the way.  Guess what?  No bonfire this year.  We made smores on the grill which wasn't too bad.

Today it was time to come back to Michigan.  I pack up my bag with the leftover smore stuff and a jar of peanut butter because I'm out here and knew we had about 5 containers at home so I didn't want to buy one.  I learned today that you cannot take a jar of peanut butter through airport security as a carry on.  They took my peanut butter and I had to stop on my way back to get some :(  I get off the plane in Detroit and who do I see sitting at the terminal?  Paige again!  We spent a little longer talking this time about different stuff and for some reason it made me a little less homesick (yes I got homesick already after only being on the plane back here).  I go get on the bus to go get my car and when I go to start my car, it won't start.  The battery was dead and I still haven't figured out why.  Fortunately, my dad gave me a portable battery jumper a few years ago and that was charged and ready to go in the back of my car so I made it out ok.

I had such a good time with my family this weekend and I really didn't want to come back to Michigan today.  Only 5 more weeks until I'm done with Harbor Beach!!!

CEOs

It seems like every phone number I am given to call is for a CEO or CTO or some other high up person in the company.  Granted, the companies aren't necessarily very big, but it's still intimidating to talk to this person.  I was on a conference call a few weeks ago where it was the CEO, CTO, and two senior engineers (all male) on the other end and only me from my company.  Talk about intimidating.  They kept asking me questions that I didn't know the answers to and I felt like a complete and total idiot.  I can't imagine whats running through their heads.  While all of them have been nice and willing to help and put me through to the person I need, I wish I just had that person's number in the first place.

On another note, I got to skype with my 14 month old nephew the other day.  And by skype, I mean he was running around the room while my sister was following him with the camera and every once in a while he'd look at the camera.  It was so cute though.  At first, he wasn't sure what to make of it.  He kept making faces of "I hear Aunt Maria but where is she?" and he was confused when he saw me on the screen but by then end he loved it and gave me kisses on the camera and the screen.  We have determined that he knows who I am on the phone but I like it better when I can actually see him respond to me (he's not really talking yet so every communication is visual).  Found pictures!!!

Beginning of conversation - he was still a little skeptical.

 Figuring it out - this was right before he gave me kisses.  He smiled when he heard my voice!

 He got the chair to himself and figured out the back rocks/moves.

Midland, MI

This weekend, I went to visit my interviewer and her family in Midland, MI.  It's about a 2 hour drive from here and it's mostly a 55 mph 2 lane (one each way) road the entire way.  I got there around 11 Saturday morning.  Just in time to watch  the end of the soccer game.  We had grilled cheese for lunch an then one of the other PSU alum/recruiters came over with her 18 month old son and the two little ones played while we watched the other game.  Then a quick dinner of fajitas and off to the Loons game.  The Loons are Midland's minor league baseball team and they play at Dow Diamond.  It's right outside of the Midland plant (Dow HQ) so I got a little overview of the plant from the outside.  At the game we almost got hit by 2-3 foul balls.  The the wind was blowing so hard towards us after the game during fireworks that we were getting rained on by the cardboard outer casings of the fireworks.  I didn't know I needed to bring my PPE (personal protective equipment - in this case safety glasses) to the game!  Today was watching the morning soccer game, a picnic lunch, then trying to drive back to HB in torrential downpour!  It was a really fun weekend! 

No Cats Allowed in the Plant!

So, my roommate Kristy and I are walking to work this morning.  We live on a corner.  The plant is a block north and a block east - a total of 3 minutes.  The post office is right across the street from the plant.  We usually just cross the street whenever we feel like it because there aren't ever any cars.  Well today, we're walking down the road and Kristy sees a cat.  Not really odd though because people around her let their pets (and 4 year old children) be alone in the yard for hours on end.  So we continue our walking - not really acknowledging the cat or anything.  Well, it starts following us.  It follows us across the street and as we're walking along the sidewalk, it's walking along the curb like a kid - on the curb, off the curb, on, off, etc.  I guess it's a good thing that there aren't ever any cars because it probably would have been hit by one.  Anyway, we walk across the parking lot to the security gate to badge it.  The cat hesitated at the end of the sidewalk but ultimately ran to catch up with us.  Now we don't know what to do.  Obviously we don't want it to follow us into the plant but we can't just stand here with it.  So I go into security to tell them that a cat is trying to follow us to work.  They laughed and told us that the cat had tried to go home with someone earlier this morning.  Good, it wasn't just us.  In the meantime, a few other people showed up and it went over to one of them and laid down like it wanted to be pet by her.  We quickly badged in and went to our desks before the cat could realize that we were gone.

Now, every morning the engineers gather in the lunch room for the morning.  It is just an update as to what has happened in the plant and what we expect to happen that day.  The last questions is "Anything for the roundtable?"  Well one of the guys asks if anyone else saw the cat outside the plant this morning and Kristy and I looked at each other and started laughing.  Then he proceeded to say how it actually followed him into the plant and was over by one of the chemical tanks and they couldn't get it to leave.  Glad it wasn't just us!

Now, we don't actually know what happened to the cat.  We do think it is someone's pet, but we don't know whose.  I plan on asking security tomorrow when we get there because I kind of want to know what happened to it.

Father's Day

This year is the second year in a row (and ever) that I have been away from my dad on Father's Day.  Last year he was planning on coming to Erie on his motorcycle for the weekend to visit, but the weather was bad so he didn't come.  Understandable.  This year, he had surgery on Friday so he was not able to come.  Now I knew this surgery was coming and it wasn't anything major, but I was still worried.  I spoke with him yesterday and he just didn't sound like himself (as is expected a day after surgery).  However, I spoke with him this morning and he sounded 100 times better!
Because of this, this entire weekend has been kind of stressful - a lot going through my mind.  Whenever this happens, I always pull out my KAIROS folder and read through everything.  For those of you who don't know, KAIROS is a retreat I went on senior year of high school.  It means "God's time."  Something special in that folder is a poem my dad wrote me called "What makes you smile".  I'm not going to re-write the whole poem - just some of it.

 Are you wondering what I speak of?

Not if you've pleasured there yourself

Yet there's nothing to remind you

Unless you've met this little elf

It matters not the age

Be it forty or just seven

The only way to describe it

Is "a little bit of heaven.".

If you've known  it for a lifetime

Or for just a little while

be she 40 or just seven

It's you little girl's smile

If you're the daughter or the father

Know the value in this smile

She giving great enjoyment

He holding gold for just a while.

Every time I read this poem, I can't help but smile.  It always lifts my spirits.

Because I could not be with my dad, I made it a point of saying "Happy Father's Day" to every man I saw today.  Every time I said it, the man would smile and say "Thank you".  I'm sure some of them didn't get to see their sons and daughter's today, but I hope that by me saying those three little words, I made their day better.

Knitting

I learned how to knit a few summers ago.  My grandma used to teach me how to crochet when I would go visit during the summer.  Every summer, she had to start teaching me from the beginning.  The farthest I ever got was making a really long chain.  The last summer I went by myself to visit, she decided to teach me how to knit.  I was really excited about that because I already knew the basic knit stitch from my friends teaching me on the bus.  That summer I learned how to cast on, knit, purl, and bind off.  Every once in a while over the past few years, I would pick it up again.  This past year, I found I was really stressed and had a lot on my mind and I started knitting again.  I have also taught myself to do some more complicated things so I wasn't limited to making scarves and roll brim hats.  In the past few months, I have started and finished a couple hats, a blanket for my sister-in-law who is due to have a baby girl at the beginning of July, and the project I just finished today - a small purse/backpack.  This backpack was the most complicated thing I have made yet and I'm glad it's finally finished.

I now currently have 3 more projects going - a hat for my nephew to match the one I made my sister (it's lime green), a hat for my niece that is multi-colored, and a hat for myself that is striped navy blue and white for PSU.  The hat for me is the first time I am changing colors during a pattern.  So far, so good.

Possible Road Trip

So, three years ago in June 2007, my step-sister Jenna got engaged.  Chad, her fiancee, was traditional in the sense that he thought the woman should plan it and he will just show up.  Well, Jenna lacks motivation and didn't think she should have to plan it all herself.  Needless to say, planning never really started.  In September 2008, we found out Jenna was pregnant.  Because she was due in April, they wanted to try and get married before she go too big to look nice.  Well, despite trying to plan something quick then, it never happened.  Well somehow this past Monday, they decided they were going to plan a wedding in the Outer Banks, NC for August.  There were two weeks and the one that happens to work for Chad's parents is the same week I am "home".  Somehow this entire thing has come together since Monday and, while there is a chance something will happen and it all has to be canceled, I have a feeling that everything is going to happen this time.
So, this "home" time.   I am done work in Michigan on Friday August 6th.  I go back to school for WEPO the 17th. This gives me 10 days for myself.  Well, it did.  Now instead of letting it take me 2-3 days to drive home and see friends along the way.  I will be spending those three day's driving basically non-stop from Michigan to home then to NC.  I'm done work at 11:30 on Fridays so after lunch on 8/6 I need to pick my mom up in Detroit on my way home.  Then we're driving as far as we can and spending the night and hopefully getting home early afternoon on Saturday.  Early Sunday morning we will leave for OBX and be there until that Friday.  Sometime in there will be the wedding.  And oh yeah, I have to take a final exam in there somewhere.  Come home so the store can be open on Saturday.  Then have the rest of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday at home.  And in that time frame of 2.5 days, I have a list of doctors appointments and friends to see along with packing both my car and my  mom's car before I leave Tuesday morning.
Wow, I'm even more excited for August to come now!!!!!  And just for you Brandi...2 months until WEPO!!!!!

Songs and Memories

Have you ever been listening to a song and all of a sudden found yourself crying.  That happened to me tonight.  One of my favorite songs is "Come on Get Higher" by Matt Nathanson.  Well, I was listening to a Sugarland channel on Pandora and this song came on but Sugarland singing it.  By the way, I love Sugarland!!!  Just the song and the way she/they sing it brought back a lot of memories.  I'm not sure why those memories are the ones that came back though.  Anyway, they're from a time I want to go back to.  Before everything started being stressful.  Before college.  Back when I saw my family every day.  Back to the beginning of senior year of high school.  Back to a time that will always have a special place in my heart.  Thinking of that time in my life brought back memories that I'm sure will always make me cry.

"Is it the outlook?"

At a little after 8 this morning, my Outlook e-mail stopped working.  I could send messages but couldn't receive.  After the morning meeting, I contacted the help desk.  After previous experiences with help desks, I was glad Dow has an option of chatting online - basically instant messenger.  I opted for that instead of trying to understand them over the phone.  I explain the situation and get a response of "Is it the outlook?".  I simply reply yes.  I am then asked "Did you open the outlook?".  *Obviously I did because I'm having problems receiving messages* I replied "yes, and I restarted it and it still doesn't work".  "Ok. I will be with you in a minute"  This person came to the solution that I should restart my computer and he/she would contact me when it was restarted.  This is at around 9:20.  I restart my computer and for about 10 minutes I am afraid to open outlook because I was not instructed to do so.  Well at 9:40 I decide that I should try to open it.  Once it opens and tries to receive a message, I get an application error so I open the chat again and talk to someone else.  At around 10:30 I finally get the solution that it is a "global problem and there is nothing you can do about it.  the server is down and will be fixed ASAP".  So, I spend the entire day at work without e-mail.  It was actually a little frustrating because all of my projects are at the point where I am waiting for responses from other people so I couldn't do any work.  The odd part about it was the down server was a Midland server (about 2 hours away) and I think I may have been one of the only ones in Harbor Beach (if not the only one) who was having the e-mail problem, but some of my friends in Midland were the only one's in their department who did have access to e-mail.  Oh technology!  I can't imagine how the actually full time workers felt about the all day outage.  Hopefully it will be resolved by the time I get to work tomorrow and maybe people will have responded so I have something to do.

Cedar Point

So, you may think that the biggest adventure of the trip was the park itself.  Or maybe the 4 hour drive there.  Or maybe even the hotel (which I will get into more detail about in a bit).  Well, it wasn't.  The biggest adventure of the trip was when I locked my keys (and everything except my wallet) in my car at an Ohio Turnpike rest area about 20 minutes after I left the park.  All I wanted was a quick stop to get food and gas.  What I got was a 1 hour long stop that consisted of borrowing two people's cell phones to call AAA, chatting with the people I asked for a pen so I could keep myself entertained while I was waiting, sitting on the back of my car waiting for 45 minutes (remember I didn't have a phone for them to call me when they got there), and the tow truck driver who came to my rescue.  I still made it back to Harbor Beach before it was completely dark though so I can't complain too much.

The hotel wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  I had read that it was not clean and in a bad neighborhood.  Also, they didn't hold true to the reservations you made (if they could find them at all).  Our experience wasn't too bad.  We had booked a two bedroom non-smoking suite for 7 people (we were told the room would hold 5 adults and 2 children) for $75.  Apparently there was some confusion earlier in the week so we actually had three reservations for this and could cancel the others when we got there.  The rooms were in a girl named Maria's name but she had told them Luke would probably be the one checking in because he was in the earlier car.  Well, Luke and I get there and they can't find our reservation.  So we call Maria and she calls the hotel and we got a room.  We go to the room and it is two double beds in a single room and it smells of smoke. Obviously not right so we wait a few minutes until the other car gets there.  Maria goes and asks about it and magically they have found our other reservation.  We get our room keys and go to the room and they don't work.  She goes  back, gets new keys, and they still don't work.  We ended up in the room directly upstairs which was next to one of the other rooms of co-ops.  The room was pretty clean and didn't smell and overall it wasn't a bad night.

Cedar Point was amazing.  I had gone last summer but I was really excited to go again.  The forecast for the day wasn't too good so that kept a lot of people away.  The longest we waited for a ride was an hour for Maverick which is totally worth it.  The only ride I refused to go on was Top Thrill Dragster but the group didn't end up going on it while I was there anyway.  I'm so excited to go again later this summer.

End of Week 4

4 weeks down, 8 to go.  This weekend is Cedar Point with the Midland, MI co-ops (where Dow HQ is).  From what I've read about the hotel, it should be an adventure.  I'll definitely do an update on Sunday when I get back.

Crazy Weather

For those of you that think State College, PA weather is crazy, well you haven't been to Harbor Beach, MI.  We had one night that was so foggy we couldn't see our cars on the street.  Mind you, this was at 8:30 pm when its still semi-light outside.  It looked like something out of a horror movie.  At 11 am the next day, it was still fairly foggy (could barely see the DAS plant maybe 1/4 mile away).  We've also had a day where it was 80 degrees then the next day it was 50.  Luckily the 80 degree day was a weekend so I could lay out on the beach.

Today was by far pretty crazy.  My alarm went off at 6:45 and I had to do a double take at the clock because it was still so dark.  Now, normally it is fairly dark because I'm on the back side of the house but I would have told you it was 2:30 in the morning.  It was also quite cold (and by that I mean like high 40s maybe).  So we leave for work, and it's raining.  Not down pouring, but substantial rain.  So naturally, I pull out my umbrella for the 3 minute walk to work.  Well, an umbrella may be able to withstand a passing CATA bus, but it cannot withstand Harbor Beach wind.  It turned inside-out 3 times before I finally gave up on it (remember, I only have a 3 minute walk to work).  This afternoon, it was bright and sunny and I was sweating in the long sleeve shirt I have to wear at work.  This morning I was cold in a fleece jacket and that long sleeve shirt.

After work on Thursdays, all of the engineers and some of the operators and security guards get together at Smalley's (a local restaurant and bar) for dinner.  Because a lot of people aren't going to be here tomorrow night, we all got together tonight.  It was still very nice outside at 5:30 when we arrived.  But come time to leave at 8:30, it was starting to get nasty outside.  It was actually kind of cool because it was misting on us, but about a block south it was gray and rainy and a block north it was bright and sunny.  So of course, we had to find a rainbow.  I have a picture on my phone so I'll upload that when I get if off of there.

Apartment

So, who remembers the Brady Bunch?  Well, I think their kitchen appliances were newer than ours.  While everything is old, they are in working order.  Here are a few pictures of our apartment.  It is the second story of a house and the steps go up at a 60 degree angle.  I never thought I would find steps as steep as the ones I have at home.

Our house.  As I said, we are on the 2nd floor.  It is a 3 minute walk to work and a block to the main street.

My room. 

The living room.

Part of our kitchen.  The stove pulls out and the oven door slides up.

The fridge.  Notice there is no freezer door.  The freezer is in fact an ice box whose door is inside the fridge.

Our shower.  You can't see it from this picture, but the shower head is jury-rigged to be a real shower (it is designed to be hand held).  Dow made them put up the shower curtain too.

So, that's pretty much our apartment in a nutshell.  It's nice, but definitely not what I would have expected.  We can hear the guy downstairs all the time through the air vents.  Our first night he yelled at us (through the vents) because he didn't have any hot water.  Both my roommate and I had taken showers and neither of us had hot water - we both had lukewarm showers.  We have gotten used to it though.  I'm not sure if I'd rather have a dorm shower or this one.

Harbor Beach

Harbor Beach, MI - The world's greatest man-made fresh water harbor.  Population - approximately 1,600.  Size - 1.9 square miles.

This is where I am spending my summer.  Harbor Beach is a very small town compared to where I am used to.  There is 1 traffic light, 2 gas stations (one is also the "grocery store"), a Corner Store, a Drug Store, a Library, and a few bars. 

Here are some pictures of the town.

The Corner Store and State Street

The Harbor Beach Light House

The Beach

The closest "real" stores (Wal-Mart and Fast Food, etc.) are 20 miles away.  Directions: From the traffic light, drive away from the lake until you get to another traffic light.  Make a right and keep driving until you see the signs.  No joke - someone gave me those directions. 

There are some good things about this town.  I can walk to work in 3 minutes.  Its a small town so I know a lot of people after being here for 3 weeks.  It has already made me appreciate back home.  And I like going to Church much more in a small town than I do at home.

Blogging!!!

My friend has had a blog for a while now and when I was talking to her today she said that I should make one.  So here it goes.  I'm going to try to keep this updated but I'm not making any promises.